Year: 2015

Posted on

3rd Hackcess to Justice hackathon winners include app built on #Drupal8

After two days of brainstorming and collaboration in North Carolina’s capital city, lawyers, students and coders developed legal apps to aid farm workers, streamline legal aid cases and evaluate legal
…
The $500 third place prize went to Michael Silverman, a developer. His submission of a Legal Aid eligibility test is intended to provide a simple, easy to use, mobile friendly interface that allows individuals to learn if they are eligible for legal aid by answering a few questions. Silverman plans to continue to work on the app to be accessible through voice prompts which will be translatable to different languages.

 

Source: App to aid migrant workers wins 3rd Hackcess to Justice hackathon :: ABA Journal

That third place prize went to an app built on Drupal 8 as a custom module. That’s pretty cool. All of the projects worked on are on the Hackcess To Justice submission page.

Posted on

IBM is reportedly going to buy Weather Company’s digital assets

International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) is nearing an agreement to buy the Weather Company’s digital assets in a deal that could be announced as soon as this week, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Source: IBM nears deal to buy Weather Company’s digital assets: source :: Reuters

The Weather Company’s digital assets include weather.com, the Weather Underground, and a bunch of platform apps. The weather.com website is generally considered one of the largest Drupal powered sites in the world.

This seems lit a bit of an odd move for IBM since it looks like a content play. Big Blue is more likely after the data that drives the digital properties and the talent pool it brings.

Posted on

My Twitter Digest for 10/26/2015

Posted on

Why is design in open source projects often ugly?

If you know a professional designer who is contributing time to an open source project, chances are they fall into one of these three categories, explained Garth Braithwaite, who spoke Monday at the All Things Open conference:
1) They were tricked into it or peer­ pressured by a friend who is also an open source project manager.
2) They work for a corporate sponsor, so they’re paid for their contributions.
3) They’re a designer who just so happens to be a developer.

Source: Report from All Things Open: Design in open source | Opensource.com

Open source projects often attract top flight developers, but designers are few and far between. The result is a lot of function over form design that is often utilitarian and ugly. This articles looks at why this is and what might be done about it.

 

Posted on

Online Course Report lists 50 most popular MOOCs of all time

Unlike regular college/ university courses, MOOCs can attract many thousands of enrollees around the world. They can come in the form of active course sessions with participant interaction, or as archived content for self-paced study. MOOCs can be free, or there can be a charge – either on a subscription basis or a one-time charge. Free MOOCs sometimes have a paid “verified certificate” option.

— The 50 Most Popular MOOCs of All Time http://www.onlinecoursereport.com/the-50-most-popular-moocs-of-all-time/

A good list, but be sure to read the caveats at the beginning and end.